Some before and after pics of my ugly duckling!

[Yojimbo]

I'm doing some mods on my current tomahawk and I'm not quite done yet. I still need to strip the paint off the head and blue it and finish honing the cutting edges properly.

I'm saving up for an American Tomahawk version so now I've got another expensive hobby...

Here's how it looked out of the box.

Here's how it looks now as my "Fighting Hawk and Knife Combo" the tomahawk is a Cold Steel Vietnam Hawk and the knife is a SOG Desert Dagger.

*** Special thanks DancesWithKnives for explaining how to wrap the handles!!

 

[pauldulson]

Nice work Yojimbo, I picked one of these hawks up a couple of weeks ago and wondered how it might be
'improved ' , your's has given me some idea's.
Did you modify the sharpened edges at all ? Did you consider polishing the head?
Paul.

 

[Yojimbo]

Paul,

I haven't thought about polishing the head. I know I want to strip the paint and put some gun bluing on it.

I didn't modify the edges but I followed the contour and started sharpening all the edges plus the bottom hooking edge with a file. I've read some posts here that mention the top edge on the primary cutting blade also need to be sharpened.

You might be able to see the bottom edge is sharpened on the second picture.

The paracord on the handle made the biggest difference. Before I put it on it felt like the tomahawk would fly out of my hand if I was swinging hard and fast. I also tried doing a Strider style wrap at first but I found it griped to well and I could not easily twist the hawk over in my hand to switch to the spike side. The standerd wrap I used in the picture provides an excellent grip when swinging as well as smooth transitions to the spike and back.

Make sure you post before and after pics of your hawk!!

Regards,

Chris

 

[pauldulson]

Chris ,
yes I agree , the handle does feel a bit slim even to my small hands , so the cord wrap looks a good way to go to beef it up. I'll be taking a file to those edges too, to bring them up to spec'.
The one mod I have done so far is put a small screw in ring into the butt to fit a wrist loop to.
I also like the idea of the blued head.
The ATC hawks do look good , unfortunately I don't think there is anywhere to check them out this side of the ocean.
Cheer's ,
Paul.